some random sketches!

two sketches

Nothing major, just some random sketches. Been a bit uninspired with this series recently, to be honest. Schoolwork is a pain. T_T

Artslam 83-89

Two draft pages from chapter 6.

Saru and Nezumi fight, in chapter 9.

Some random busts.

Mac playing with a young kutabe.

Profile page for Matthaus.

Profile page for Victor.

Artslam 68-73

Tora and Mac exploring the Tiger Temple. I won't spoil anything just yet. ;)

I've had the idea for a while now, but since watching Avatar: The Last Airbender, I've been more inspired to flesh out the elements for this arc of the story more.

Two sketches which spawned while watching TLA... Tora = firebender. :P

Practice sketches for Russel, Nezumi's guardian. Also a failed sketch of a motorcycle.

Artslam 27-33

I've actually been really lazy the past week or so, gaming a lot and trying to finish a few old games I left unfinished. I finished Dragon Age earlier this afternoon, so I decided to stop procrastinating...

Neko can manipulate his magic into the shape of weapons. It's just one of the things he does. This one's a whip with a blade on the end. As with most things, it looked better in my head...

A new weapon for Nezumi. I admit, I pretty much stole this from the Prince of Persia movie. He has a device on his wrists, hidden in his sleeves, that dispenses these "needles".

On the topic of Nezumi, I've been thinking of redesigning his guardian for a while. After drawing a few of the male characters, I felt all their hair kinda looked the same. The one on the far left is what he looks like currently. I like the one on the far right the best though, heh.

While we're talking about male characters, I doodled a simple ref for Kyle. Needed to remember how his hair is, because I drew it wrong in the recent comic drafts. I also kind of epic fail at drawing kids next to adults.

Winter outfits for Purgatory arc:

Lee

Steven

Den

Artslam 6-9

Hmm, in hindsight, combining this with Nanomango may have been a bad idea... Come on self, YOU CAN DO IT!

As promised, flashback!Tora and Inu's guardians. I made a few calculation errors while doing research, which is why I crossed out the writeups, but after thinking it through a little I thought it'd still be relevant. Anyway, the flashback chapter takes place in 1945, just at the tail end of World War 2.

The basic idea I have for them is that Victor will be so pissed off at Matthaus that he will force Tora to betray Inu, resulting in their falling out and the explanation behind Inu's grudge against Tora. I'm really looking forward to drawing them! (I'm sure there is a special place in hell for people who fangirl over their own characters.)

This is Steven and Kyle Warner, and they're brothers. Their family runs a dairy farm in outback Australia. (Victoria, to be precise) Their partners are Uma (the horse) and Hitsuji (the goat) respectively. They'll be making their debut in chapter 5, so I'm not quite ready to divulge their personalities just yet.

Somewhat old sketch - Nicole (Inu's guardian) and Russel (Nezumi's guardian) in their second arc outfits.

Page of random sketches! I should really draw Usagi more.

Artslam 2010 - day 1

Boy are we in for a wild ride!

Earth, Water, Wind, Fire (complete)

I got a piece of very helpful advice from someone on FAF about changing SAI's scratch disk, and after I changed it to my 1TB harddrive, SAI worked like a charm. :D Deleting the sketch layers I didn't need anymore helped too!

*falls over in a heap*

storyboarding update

Son of a bitch computer can't even render it properly. >:|

lol no, it is still not done yet.

more poster progress

Added flat colours, will start on background and shading tomorrow.


Quick colour study for Nezumi's Brave form.

Earth, Water, Wind, Fire

This is being done for a storyboarding assignment - a set of 4 postcards which can be joined together to form one image, but still be stronge enough to stand on its own. Inevitably, I came up with an idea that incorporated ZB, and the teacher really likes it. :)

The above is the (very messy) second sketch draft. Just to give a quick breakdown:

• Tatsu - Wind
• Nezumi - Water
• Tora - Fire
• Buta - Earth

Lineart stage. Took me 5 hours to finish everything. XD I get the feeling some of the detail will be lost once I add colour... The elements clashing will be painted in later.

Here's a closeup view of the lineart.

Character Balance Meme

Haven't posted here in a while... uni work and commissions keeping me busy with barely enough time to pump out the weekly page. >_<
Results were quite interesting, albeit expected, to say the least. Tatsu was made to be a mentor and guide, and be powerful from the start, so he should be fine the way he is. Inu though, I might need to tone him down a little for when he becomes a main character.

These 7 are probably the most developed out of the vast number of characters I have planned for this comic, and I tried to limit it to zodiacs only, as I sadly haven't done as much work with the humans. Need to rectify this!

And yes, I did design Tatsu to be bishounen. XD

goals for 2010

• More comics! If I can I will try to draw fast enough to be able to update twice a week.
  
• Extra chapters : Zodiac Battle -Untold Stories-, describing how the other guardians met their zodiacs, each will be about the length of a standard chapter. One of these every 4-5 chapters. (think of it as the omake at the end of a manga)
  
• More coloured images, more downloads.

I've been working on this since yesterday afternoon, a mock-up "manga cover" for "volume 1" of Zodiac Battle. Taking a page out of other mangaka's books and colouring it traditionally, with Copic markers. ^^

elemental

Doing a "series" of the zodiacs wielding their element. Nezumi's element is water.

I really need to scan my sketchbook.

(insert witty title here)

He put on the goggles!

More demon chair. Future wallpaper/cover?

more chapter 3 stuff

Sketch for Chapter 3's cover, and also as a submission for an artstickers prompt.

Bust sketches of the Zodiacs, trying to get into the hang of drawing some of the characters I don't draw a lot. ^^;

Artslam day 39-41

Apologies once again for the lack of updates, been away from the pc for personal reasons. Two more weeks left for artslam! *panics*

Anyway, someone requested more info on Saru and Nezumi over on FurAffinity, for a trade, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to post some info on them.

Name: Saru (猴)
Zodiac position: 9th

Saru is a bit of a diva. He loves showing off, and often has the confidence to back it up. All the partners he has chosen so far are either already famous, or have gone on to become famous after the Battle.

He fights with incredible martial skill, and when needed, pulls out his staff for added power. He is very agile and good at dodging physical attacks.

Name: Nezumi (鼠)
Zodiac position: 1st

The tenacious first animal of the Zodiac, Nezumi's charismatic nature makes him well liked by everyone. He is usually carefree and laid back, but when push comes to shove, he can execute a mean uppercut.

His main weapons are two short daggers. Like Saru, he is nimble and quick to dodge oncoming attacks. As his daggers do not inflict much damage, he moves around the opponent to make them injure themselves.


Random Tatsu in dragon form?!

unexpected hiatus

Apologies for the lack of posts recently; my host, Dragoncity has been down for server moves for the past few weeks, and has only just come back up temporarily. Dragoncity mods, I wish you guys luck in moving to the new servers!

Anyways, I've signed up to a community called Artslam on LiveJournal, where the goal is to draw at least one piece of concept art a day. Of course, I've chosen to do mine on ZB. I had originally intended to cross post the art posts here, but Dragoncity happened to go down at the same time.

Nonetheless, here are the links to the posts I've already made from the beginning of July.
day 1 - Nezumi
day 2 - Ushi
day 3 - Tora
day 4 - Usagi
day 5 - Tatsu
day 6-9 - Hebi, Uma, Hitsuji, Saru
day 10 - interlude

Expect daily updates from here on out!